A Beautiful Friendship
by PenguinofProse
Summary: In which Roan calls Bellamy out on his feelings for Clarke during S4.


**a/n Hello! This is set in Season 4 - We Will Rise, diverging from canon at the point where Roan and Bellamy drive off to look for a place to cross the river. Happy reading!**

"You're not so great at alliances, are you?" Roan asks, with that infuriating smirk that makes Bellamy want to punch his stupid handsome face.

Bellamy doesn't punch his stupid handsome face, though. He concentrates very carefully on driving the rover. He needs to get upstream and find a safe crossing place, and he needs to do it quickly so that he can get back to Clarke and resume his proper place at her side. Anything could be happening to her, right now, while he drives along the shore with the king of cockiness, and he can feel the need to be there and look out for her clawing at his insides.

Roan continues to speak despite Bellamy's resounding silence. "Or maybe you just suck at friendship."

"I'm great at friendship." Bellamy argues, because he's starting to feel like this pathetic excuse for a leader has insulted him enough by now.

"Friendship." Roan snorts. "Is that what you're calling it? Is that what they called it in your can in the sky, when you followed someone round with those bedroom eyes?"

Bellamy doesn't know what he's talking about. Obviously. He doesn't have any friends he has ever followed around with _bedroom eyes_. The mere thought of it is preposterous. There's only one friend he keeps a special watch over, and the fact that he guards Clarke so closely has everything to do with her protection and nothing to do with what's going on in his pants. Not that anything is going on in his pants, of course.

Roan sighs and tries again. He may be weak, and narrow-minded, and a bit of an all-round idiot, but Bellamy has to admit he is at least persistent. "Look. I know we wouldn't choose to take a rover ride together, but there's no need to ignore me."

"I'm not ignoring you." He says, with all the calm maturity that this supposed leader so obviously lacks. "You haven't said anything I felt the need to answer."

"Just give it a rest, won't you?" Roan sounds close to anger now, and Bellamy feels a small spark of proud victory at this development. "It's the end of the world, Bellamy. We're trying to save the human race. Can you not just accept that I'm not trying to screw your girlfriend and give me a break?"

Bellamy chokes on thin air, tries to turn it into a smooth, cynical laugh. He does not succeed, much though it pains him to admit it. In his defence, he reckons that was a pretty low – and unexpected – blow.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Yes." Roan insists. "Yes, you do. I'm talking about the fact that you have _always_ hated me, ever since Clarke decided she trusted me, because you have this need to be the only person in the entire damn world she trusts. You're so scared that someone's going to show up and replace you -"

"I've hated you since you _kidnapped_ _her_ and stabbed me." He grinds out, too lost in the heat of the argument to dwell on the admission of hatred. He hadn't intended to admit to hating the man, he seems to remember. Hatred is petty, and implies that he has some kind of motivation. Something like jealousy, perhaps.

"Interesting. So you're so devoted to her that you crossed a battlefield and took a sword to the leg for her."

"She's my friend. And my leader. I'm just doing my duty."

Silence gathers, thickens in the confined stuffiness of the rover. The day is bright and warm for the time of year and as the minutes tick by, Bellamy begins to find the atmosphere in here distinctly stifling.

He's not sure who won that argument. And yeah, sure, he _knows_ that Roan is supposed to be his ally now, but he can't help feeling a fierce desire to win against him at any and every opportunity. He reflects on his infuriating companion's words and feels his face grow only warmer as he decides that, in fact, they might have contained a grain of truth. Because actually, yes, he _did_ quite like being the only man Clarke trusted, and he isn't entirely fond of the way that Roan is suddenly in her confidence.

But that doesn't imply that there are any _bedroom eyes_ going on, of course.

At length, Roan speaks, in a voice quite unlike any Bellamy has ever heard him use before. It is soft, somehow, and weary, and altogether lacking in that much-hated cockiness.

"Bellamy. We're not friends, I know we're not. And I know _why_ we're not, even if you're still working it out. But I'm telling you, the world is ending, and I think that if you feel anything at all for Clarke beyond friendship, you should tell her before it's too late." He feels the world start spinning around him at that, but forces himself to keep driving, straight and fast and true, along the shore.

He takes a while to gather his thoughts, wonders where on Earth to begin.

"Why should you care?" He asks in the end.

Roan laughs. "I don't know. I guess maybe I think that two people who've given up so much for their people might deserve a bit of happiness before we all burn to death."

"Happiness isn't about what we deserve." Bellamy twists the words Clarke once gave him, reshapes them into something new. "If happiness was about what anyone deserved, she'd be the happiest woman on Earth. But happiness is about luck."

"You didn't say anything about what _you_ deserve." At that perceptive comment Bellamy is hit by the sudden realisation that Roan might not actually be such an idiot after all.

He gives a cold laugh. "I certainly don't deserve happiness."

He certainly doesn't deserve _her_.

"Every leader makes mistakes, Bellamy." Yeah, he can say that again. "But for a guy that hates me, you're not all bad."

This time, his laugh is slightly warmer. "Right back at you."

Then he spots what looks like a viable crossing point, and the subject of Clarke is dropped.

…...

They drive back to the place where they left Clarke and the hydrazine in rather better spirits. They are still silent, for the most part, but it is a less stodgy silence than the one that sat so thickly between them on the journey out.

It is a thoughtful silence, more than anything, as Bellamy mulls over Roan's earlier words. He can see that his passenger might have been onto something, actually. It's the sort of time, with the world ending and all, when a guy might consider confessing his feelings, hypothetically, if he had any. And, well, he's not saying he makes _bedroom eyes_ at Clarke, obviously. But his need to protect her runs deeper than he has ever felt for anyone other than his sister, and he thinks that she probably deserves to know that there are people who care about her if they're all about to die anyway. She's always had a worryingly low opinion of her own worth, always been a bit too ready to take a risk and sacrifice herself, and he figures it can't hurt to let her know that he thinks her value is beyond measure.

"It's just around this corner." Roan points out, rather unnecessarily. They may have reached something of a truce, but it seems he is still determined to treat Bellamy like a bit of a fool.

Bellamy says nothing, just nods. He finds that he is growing a little nervous at the thought of seeing Clarke, now. How is he supposed to go about telling his close friend that she means the world to him without her getting uncomfortable and presuming that it's a _bedroom eyes_ kind of a confession?

Then they round the corner, and his nervousness spirals rather quickly into flat-out panic.

The truck is gone, and there is no sign of Clarke.

…...

Bellamy didn't wake up this morning expecting to feel gratitude towards Roan. It wasn't exactly top of his to-do list. But in as much as he can feel anything except outright terror at the thought that Clarke is missing in enemy territory, he feels grateful that Roan is by his side helping him to find her. He's quite good at it, as it turns out. He knows the land, and knows the grounders, and before long they are driving into an open meadow, and Clarke is driving a truck with a blade to her throat some distance away. It's not a large field, but the space between them is painfully large.

And then his new friend proves only more useful, shooting and stabbing and generally saving the day with an energetic efficiency that Bellamy can only admire. He has to admit, really, that it could be easy to be jealous of Roan. Between his skill and his confidence and that annoying _body_ the guy does seem to have a lot going for him.

The fact that Clarke trusts him is nothing to do with it.

Bellamy is barely breathing by the time Roan finishes saving the day. Clarke plays her part, too, driving with impressive control given the circumstances, and all that Bellamy is left to do is a little shooting and a lot of feeling distinctly _spare_.

The vehicles come to a halt, and Bellamy tumbles out of the door of the rover in his hurry to get to Clarke. He just needs to hold her, needs to reassure himself that she's still in one piece.

As if sensing his urgency, she is scrambling down from her driver's seat too, and suddenly she is in his arms and he can feel her warm breath on his neck and he's tangling his fingers in her hair and he's pretty certain that he will never let her go.

"You're OK." He breathes. "Thank God you're OK, Clarke. I was so worried."

"I'm OK." She confirms, tone surprisingly light. "I've had worse days."

That breaks something inside of him.

"That's not the point, Clarke. I _know_ you've had worse days, and I hate it. I hate how you seem to think it's fine for you to be in danger, like it's normal or something. It's not normal for your life to be at risk, Clarke." He takes a deep breath, and recalls Roan's earlier suggestion. "You must know that I hate it when you're in danger. Because – because you're important to me, and I don't want to imagine my life without you in it."

He feels her freeze in shock and wonders if he has made some enormous mistake. Perhaps he misread the situation, and she sees him as a decent companion and useful lieutenant more than some particularly close friend. Perhaps what he just said sounded like it involved _bedroom eyes_, and freaked her out. Perhaps -

"You're important to me, too." She murmurs, and he finds himself suddenly very aware of the way that her lips ghost against his neck as she speaks. He's noticed that when they've hugged before, of course he has, and he's always found it pleasant, but it never occurred to him before that this fact might be worthy of notice.

He wonders rather suddenly, then, if perhaps he is beginning to understand what Roan was getting at. Maybe if he has a close friend who's important to him and whose lips he rather likes to feel against his neck – well, then. Maybe there's something going on here after all.

No. No, that can't be true. Clarke is still reeling from Lexa's loss, and it wouldn't be right to presume that she would be interested in him like that anyway. He must just be overwrought, he decides, after all that panic at finding her missing and then chasing down the truck.

"Adorable." Roan's voice breaks into his thoughts, his usual cynicism back in full force.

Clarke draws back and fixes Roan with a stare. "Adorable?" She asks, a little sharp.

"Adorable." Roan drawls. "Now you've finished declaring your undying love for each other, can we get this hydrazine to Raven?"

"I – we weren't -" Clarke stutters, and Bellamy feels suddenly self-conscious of the hand that still rests at her waist. He pulls back, hurriedly, and stares at the floor.

"You two are exhausting." Roan informs them. "The world is ending, and I am fed up of waiting for you to get it together. And I swear if Bellamy gives me that jealous protective glare one more time I will stab him in the leg again."

"And you wonder why we're not friends?" Bellamy asks Roan, and he can feel that truce they reached earlier slowly evaporating.

"For God's sake." Roan really needs to learn how to control his frustration, Bellamy thinks. And that's coming from _him_, who is hardly a good example of well-managed anger. "We're not friends, because I introduced myself to you by kidnapping the woman you're in love with and then stabbing you in the leg. We're not friends, because she trusts me, and you're threatened by that. We're not friends, because I'm a good-looking guy and you're jealous of the way she looks at me. Which is stupid, because if you would just step back and smell the approaching _death wave_ you'd realise that it is _nothing_ compared to the way she looks at you."

There is a heartbeat of silence, more loaded than any oppressive silence Bellamy remembers from the rover that afternoon. And then, just as he is wondering where on Earth they go from here, Clarke pipes up.

"He's got a point."

"What?" Bellamy does not understand where she's going with this.

"He's got a point."

It is all she will say, and she will not meet his eye. And Bellamy stands there, scared beyond belief, as his gaze flickers between Clarke and Roan and back again. He doesn't understand why this moment has to be so scary, why it carries with it so much more fear even than that cage in Mount Weather. All he needs to do is decide whether to kiss his closest friend. In front of a man he detests, in the middle of a field, half way through a mission gone wrong.

He goes for it, in the end. Her lips are pleasant, after all – he's already established that. And he figures that, if the world is ending, he might as well give it a try. He's not really had a meaningful relationship before – Gina was sweet, but he feels awful about the way he didn't take their relationship as seriously as she did. So he isn't quite sure about situations where sex and emotions collide, but he reckons this might well be the only chance he ever gets to work it out.

Trying to act decisively, he curls a hand around her chin and lifts her face and presses his mouth to hers. He has scarcely made contact when she starts kissing him back, her fingers tangling in his hair as if on instinct, her other hand circling his waist to pull his body flush against hers. And he goes along with it because, sure, he's still working out this whole feelings-meets-physicality thing, but he gets the impression that the journey towards understanding is going to be a pretty fun one. Most journeys have their good moments when Clarke is involved, even if they involve the occasional high-pressure chase across a furrowed meadow.

They keep kissing, and things start to get interesting. Her hands grow bolder, and he quite likes that, quite likes the idea that his precocious Princess might be up for bossing him around a bit in this context, too. And she seems flatteringly into him, which he hadn't really expected, as she loses her cool without obviously mourning its passing and surrenders herself to moaning into his open mouth and panting against his cheek between kisses.

In fact, this make-out session is going really rather well and Bellamy is just on the point of asking whether she might like to take it to the back seat of the rover when he hears a pointed cough.

Another cough, and Roan speaks. "It's not that I'm not happy you finally worked it out, but we need to get going."

Bellamy knows he ought to pull away and respond to that, but Clarke's lips are pretty pleasant. Has he mentioned that, recently?

"Clarke. Bellamy." Roan tries to sound commanding, but Bellamy reckons it doesn't suit him.

Much to his disappointment, though, Clarke still has her head screwed on straight. She remembers they are on a mission, even when he is losing his mind over the softness of her skin and the warmth of her breath. She pulls away, just far enough to speak, arms still wrapped firmly around him.

"We know." She is wearing a grin, and Bellamy finds himself very much wanting to kiss it away. It seems that kissing Clarke is going to be quite addictive, now that he's made a start with it.

"So let's get going." Roan insists. "You can finish this later."

Bellamy sobers at that. These last few minutes have made him even more determined that they will get a _later_. That somehow they will find a way to save the end of the world.

"We _will_ finish this later." Clarke promises him in a whisper that sends shivers down his spine.

"Yeah." He agrees. "Can't believe it took us that long to start it."

She just smiles sadly, and places a chaste peck on his lips. And then, of course, she is all business again, striding to the truck with her head held high. OK, she's not _all_ business. She does spare a moment to turn and offer him a gentle smile.

"Roan, you coming or not?" She asks, hovering by the door of the truck, looking back at where he stands unmoving.

"Not with you, Clarke." Roan offers a wolfish grin, then turns towards Bellamy. "I'll get a lift with my new friend."

**a/n Thanks for reading!**


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